Duplicate Louisiana degree programs to be weeded out to save money

Ted Jackson/The Times-PicayuneChancellor Victor Ukpolo said he expects the graduation rate at Southern University in New Orleans to improve as the campus continues its recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Ukpolo, fourth from left, was photographed in March with federal and state officials touring areas heavily damaged by the storm.

The Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission unanimously approved a recommendation by James Wharton, chancellor emeritus of the Baton Rouge campus of Louisiana State University, directing the Board of Regents to weed out unnecessary and duplicative programs.

The resolution also called on Regents to eliminate "excess hours" needed to finish a degree program.

Higher Education Commissioner Sally Clausen said her staff has been reviewing under-performing and duplicative programs and will continue to do so.

"What we have to do going forward has to be very different" than the current practice, she said. "We have done 100 program eliminations already."

The boards running the college systems "have not been talking to each other enough," she said.

Wharton also got the commission to approve a recommendation calling on Regents to work with the management boards of the LSU, Southern University and University of Louisiana systems to better define their roles and missions, limiting a university from going beyond its intended goals, such as a smaller institutions awarding graduate degrees already offered at larger campuses.

The commission approved a third Wharton resolution that called on Regents to "continue to conduct regular reviews of academic degree programs," based on specific guidelines such as cost-effectiveness, quality, workforce needs and completion rates.

The commission, created by the Legislature earlier this year, must make its formal report to Regents by Feb. 12; Regents must present it to the Legislature by Feb. 26.

Mark Musick of Johnson City, Tenn., a commission member and president emeritus of the Southern Regional Education Board, said Clausen's office should target "low-producing" programs such as chemical education, which has 16 students enrolled at five campuses.

Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, chairman of the panel as well as the Senate Education Committee, pointed out to Clausen that Regents can act on its own to abolish programs and does not need a mandate from the commission.

"Action needs to be taken and taken immediately," he told Clausen, referring to the duplication of programs and the "very, very low" student completion rates at state colleges and universities. "I want to proceed at a very fast pace."

"What we are about to do will cause serious consequences and anxiety with the campuses," Clausen said. "We are not here to make ourselves popular."

David Longanecker, a commissioner from Boulder, Colo., and president of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, said he intends to file resolutions at next month's meeting that could place some existing two-year colleges - such as LSU at Eunice - under the state's community college board.

He did not say which campuses might be affected but said his recommendations at the December meeting will be "very specific." Longanecker said the completion rates of some universities in the state - such as Southern University in New Orleans - "are indefensible."

"Six and 13 percent graduation is not a viable institution," he said of the graduation rates in recent years at the New Orleans school.

SUNO Chancellor Victor Ukpolo said that starting in 2012, he anticipates the graduation rate to grow to at least 20 percent a year. He said the school is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, which flooded its campus in 2005.

"Please do not characterize us or kill us because of Katrina," he said. "The (Orleans Parish) public school system that gives us our full-time students is very poor." He said a 6 percent graduation rate last year is the result of hundreds of students not returning after Katrina. "It is a direct result of Katrina," he said.

Tony Clayton, a Baton Rouge lawyer and nonvoting member of the commission as chairman of the Southern University Board of Supervisors, said that "years after Katrina, these kids are still in trailers (used as classrooms). They don't have a campus."